Precis Aversive Racism and Medical Interactions with Black Patients

In their article, “Aversive Racism and Medical Interactions with Black Patients: A medical interactions between black patients and nonblack physicians are usually less positive and productive than same-race interaction Louis A. Penner, John F. Dovidio, Tessa V. West and etc., investigated the role that physician explicit and implicit biases play in shaping physician and patient reactions in racially discordant medical interactions. They hypothesized that whereas physicians’ explicit bias would predict their own reactions, physicians’ implicit bias, in combination with physician explicit (self-reported) bias, would predict patients’ reactions. They had done a study that predicted that patients would react most negatively when their physician fit the profile of an aversive racist. The theory of the study showed the effects of explicit bias on physicians’ reactions were partially supported. However the black patients had less positive reactions to medical interactions with physicians relatively low.